Saturday, July 27, 2002

Rukia arrived outside of the 13th Division's Headquarters only just after Sentarō and Kiyone had, sliding to a smooth halt on the Seireitei's ubiquitous polished tile as she stopped flash stepping. The only reason she'd come second to their collective first was how busy she'd been implementing the mobilization orders that Ukitake had sent beforehand. She still didn't know what those were about, but their priority and nature had required her to run all over the division's grounds.

The 13th Division's section of the Seireitei was shaped quite unusually compared to most of the others, occupying a relatively thin band on the outer edge of it, and following the walls almost a full quarter of the way around its circumference. In other words, getting anywhere tended to take a lot of legwork. It was also a hot, muggy day, and the clouds above made things worse, holding no promise of rain and serving only as thermal insulation.

She ignored the sheen of sweat she'd gained—trying to wipe it off would only prolong her distress and sully her uniform, and was beneath her regardless—and briskly made her way to where the other two were waiting.

While Rukia was tempted to ask them what was going on, it was plain from their expressions that they didn't seem to know any more than she did, and so she merely stood with them in tense silence, waiting.

The three of them were rapidly joined by the other eighteen seated officers of the 13th Division, who quickly formed two parallel ranks, facing each other. All of them read the mood of the senior officers and stayed quiet.

Rukia spent her time trying to figure things out on her own. For orders to be broadcast over the speaker system across the entirety of the Seireitei was highly unusual—the last time she could recall having heard them was when she'd been imprisoned in the Senzaikyū. She pushed that thought aside, along with everything else that came with it. This was not the time. She ignored the little thought of Is there ever a time? that followed, and focused. Surely this had something to do with the orders Ukitake had sent earlier...

She didn't have long to contemplate the connection before Ukitake elegantly dropped out of flash step at the head of their formation, between all of them and the headquarters building.

All eyes were upon him, and he wasted no time in launching into his briefing. "I'm sure you're all wondering what's going on, and are curious as to the nature of the earlier mobilization order. There's no way for me to sugarcoat this, so," he paused and briefly made eye-contact with Rukia, "the situation is that Kurosaki Ichigo has disappeared."

As far as he could see, Rukia didn't even flinch at the news. She didn't move a single muscle. Her only reaction was in her eyes: he saw her pupils contract momentarily and dilate again, and that was it. Kuchiki, have you really become so tightly controlled...?

Rukia herself noted the moment rather differently. To her it was like time slowed down and a low, droning noise fell onto everything, like static from one of the Living World's televisions. That sound swelled and swelled and everything grew brighter and brighter until both were all-consuming, a grating roar that filled a white-out world.

Just as suddenly as it'd started, it stopped, and she found herself back in the moment. The humidity no longer bothered her—she felt chilled. She realized she was covered in goose bumps, and her sweat had run cold. What... How long...?

In actuality, Ukitake had only just resumed speaking. "As of right now, we've been searching for him for over 185 hours. By order of the sōtaichō, our search is to be expanded, with each division contributing no less than ten percent of their active strength. Our division will be taking the leading role: we'll be committing forty percent of our personnel, and Kuchiki-fukuaichō will be heading the effort. Questions?"

The twin ranks of seated officers were immediately a cacophony of queries, but Rukia's voice cut through the myriad others like a clarion call. "What's the search region?"

Ukitake returned his focus to her, channeling a degree of contrition onto his face and into his voice. He knew she was too professional to immediately demand an explanation from him—she'd changed so much from the unseated officer she'd been during the war. The kind of outbursts she'd made then after Inoue had been kidnapped... the Rukia standing in front of him would save that sort of thing until they were in private, where it might truly make a difference. Still, she would definitely demand an explanation sooner or later, and he knew he owed her one. For the moment, all he could do was express his apologies through other means. "We've only narrowed it down to the Greater Tokyo Area."

A beat passed. Rukia's thoughts had been a frenzy ever since she'd found herself again, and she already had the basis of her plan. She immediately called out eight names. "You eight are with my search effort; assemble your teams. We'll convene at the senkaimon in one hour. Ukitake-taichō, please inform the other divisions to send their representatives there as well, and ask them not to be late. Let's go, anything could be happening out there!" she commanded. Her tone was one of resolute authority, like this was any other assignment.

Having issued her instructions, she turned and flash stepped away, going to prepare and bring her own affairs into order. There was no point in treating this any differently than anything else she did. It wouldn't make her or anyone else perform any better. She had to stay cool and focused. If she didn't... who would? So she told herself, over and over again.

The eight seated officers she'd named immediately disappeared to make their own preparations.

Ukitake was left standing with the remaining officers, and found himself in something of a daze at what he'd just witnessed.

"Taichō, what about the rest of us?" Kiyone asked.

The question broke the spell that'd transfixed him, and he was already looking her way when he realized that a subtle frown was contorting his face. Scowling more for a second to banish it, he ordered "Continue with normal operations, and make ready to cover for the indefinite leave of those being deployed." With that, he too departed, turning and walking into the building.

Rukia clinically surveyed the forces that had been marshaled in front of the senkaimon.

Her division had assembled some 90 Shinigami, whereas each of the others had dispatched around 20—including, rather unusually, the 4th Division, which was normally prohibited from traveling to the Living World. A corner of Rukia's mouth twitched at that. It seemed that this was indeed being taken very seriously.

In addition, Suì-Fēng had also dispatched a cadre of the Onmitsukidō's executive militia, totaling about 40 in number. All told, there were approximately 370 personnel at her disposal, or one for every 90,000 or so people in the Greater Tokyo Area. Among those she fully recognized were Renji, Matsumoto, Kira, Momo, Ikkaku, and Yumichika. There were no taichō in attendance.

After mentally reviewing her plan yet again, Rukia took in a breath and steeled herself. Exhaling one last time, she raised her voice so as to be heard, not bothering with any introduction. "Eyes on me and listen up!" she exclaimed. "You all know why you're here, so let's get to it! Here with me are 400 networked soul pagers!"

She tapped her hands on two boxes, one to either side of her, which held 200 each. They were new touchscreen models. "Each of them comes with a fairly recent photo of Kurosaki Ichigo in case you don't happen to know what he looks like! Queue up, take one, and form back up with your division! It'll ask you for identifying information when you activate it." She'd already motioned for them to start even as she'd continued issuing instructions. "Come on, move!"

Renji found himself stunned by her commanding demeanor. It wasn't at all what he'd expected when he'd heard the news... Then again, he hadn't been entirely sure what to expect. It certainly hadn't been hearing Rukia using Ichigo's full name...

Fortunately for Rukia, she had quite the pair of lungs. "You'll be acting under the supervision of your division's highest ranking attendant officer! Personnel from the Onmitsukidō will split up among each division and report to the same to assist in establishing search patterns! Each highest-ranking division member reports to me in turn! You'll be going from here directly to the Greater Tokyo Area, and are assigned to the following geographical areas," she exclaimed, before belting out a combination of divisions and the specific wards and cities they were tasked with searching. "Abarai-fukutaichō, you're over here with me! Next-highest-ranking in the 6th Division is in command of that effort!"

Renji made his way up to Rukia with more than a little confusion and grabbed his own soul pager, punching in his information while she continued on.

"As for Kurosaki Ichigo, he has no reiryoku or reiatsu whatsoever, so he won't be able to see or respond to you no matter what you do! If and when you find him, you are to directly call either myself or Abarai-fukutaichō right away! One of us will call your division leader! Most importantly, you don't let him leave your sight, no matter what! I don't care if a Menos Grande appears and tries to kill you, you follow him! That's our only objective here! Is that understood?"

"Yes, ma'am!" came a collective shout. Her attitude demanded an enthusiastic response.

"Good! If you have further questions, direct them to your division leaders so they can relay them to me! Each division has been assigned hell butterflies keyed into the centers of your patrol areas! Once you're formed up and ready, deploy immediately! I and Abarai-fukutaichō are going on to Karakura to establish the facts on the ground there and acquire gigai—we will be functioning as both the command and final pursuit unit! You have your orders!"

Her briefing concluded, Rukia swept her gaze over her forces one last time, then turned and snapped her fingers.

With that, a hell butterfly fluttered down toward her, taking up a lazy little orbit above and behind her left shoulder.

Without any further pomp or circumstance she marched resolutely toward the senkaimon. The sooner they got this show on the road, the sooner they'd find Ichigo, and the sooner she could relax.

"Uh... Rukia?" Renji asked, following after her.

"What?"

"Are you really going to keep calling me 'Abarai-fukutaichō'?" he continued, rubbing the back of his head.

She said nothing in response. As they approached the gate of the senkaimon, the attendant members of the Kidō Corps dutifully opened its doors. They'd just barely brought them clear as she strode through them without slackening her pace.

Within moments they were through a shōji door, standing in the empty lot in front of the Urahara Shop.

"Rukia..." Renji began again, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Are you okay?" Her continued use of Ichigo's full name weighed on him—it reminded him of no one so much as Byakuya.

She paused for a second, and then shrugged his hand off. They weren't just colleagues, they were friends—good friends again, in fact, because of Ichigo—but that only counted for so much. She had never confided in Renji, and he had never confided in her either. They could joke, drink, roughhouse, conspire, gossip, and throw shade together, but they didn't reveal their inner selves to each other, and they likely never would. They didn't speak of their dreams to one another, and that limitation had always demarcated an unmentioned but bright boundary between them, one topped with concertina wire and dotted with armed checkpoints. He had no business treading upon such sacred ground of hers.

Rukia made for the door, saying only "Don't be a fool, Renji," before she knocked.

Tessai was inside, grim-faced, and after opening the outer door, he nodded her and Renji toward another at the back of the shop without a word.

After passing through it, they found Urahara, Yoruichi, Ishida, Inoue, and Chad seated around a chabudai table, tea cups in front of each of them.

"Oh, Kuchiki-san, Abarai-san, it's good to see you both again." Ishida greeted, seeing them first.

Chad nodded deeply in agreement, adding a heartfelt "It's been too long."

"Kuchiki-san! Abarai-kun!" Inoue said, jumping up to hug them both.

Both Shinigami took it somewhat awkwardly, but without resistance.

Rukia gave a tight smile. "Hello, everyone. I wish that we were meeting again under better circumstances."

Renji said nothing, studying Urahara and Yoruichi.

Both seemed rather distant and didn't meet his gaze, although they were paying particular attention to Rukia. They seemed almost sullen, and the mood of the room as a whole felt strange given the contrast between their attitudes, the earnest concern of the teenagers, and whatever was going on with Rukia.

Rukia paused for just a moment, settling things in her mind before continuing. "Since time is of the essence, I'm afraid I have to be brief. We've determined that Ichigo is still somewhere in the Greater Tokyo Area. Renji and I will be going into the city to coordinate the search, while everyone else that's involved will be arriving there shortly. Since we'll be using the senkaimon to transit directly there, I'm afraid that we'll be going on alone. I'll have to ask you to please trust me when I say that we're deploying enough Shinigami that any added effort wouldn't really help."

Renji had heard the pause before she'd said 'Ichigo', as if she'd intended to say 'Kurosaki', but hadn't noticed reactions to it from anyone. Nobody looked happy at the assertion they weren't coming along, but it seemed that they trusted Rukia enough with the matter not to object, even if felt like she was blatantly cutting them out. He had the sense that if it had been anyone else that'd said what she had, including himself...

"Is there anywhere in particular in Tokyo you can think of that he might go to?" Rukia asked.

Their three friends seemed to seriously consider the question before each said 'No' or shook their head. None of them could recall Ichigo ever being enthusiastic about anything in the city.

Urahara and Yoruichi settled for simply averting their gazes.

Rukia sighed. "That's unfortunate. I guess we'll have to do it the hard way. I'll keep you informed of our progress. Urahara-san, do you have our things ready?"

Urahara stood, saying "Right this way, Kuchiki-san, Abarai-san," in a rather noncommittal way. He watched Rukia from under his hat all the way until he'd turned, and led them to two rooms deeper in the shop.

Some minutes later, Rukia and Renji stood in the empty lot again. Both had gigai clad in light but plausible summer fashion.

Rukia's gigai wore a knee-length sundress, but was temporarily under Chappy's control, as she herself was using her zanpakutō to reopen the senkaimon.

Renji was attired in jeans and a t-shirt, and toting a pair of bags. They were taking additional clothes and some supplies, as it wasn't clear how long the search would take.

The rest of Ichigo's friends and associates stood by, waiting to see the two of them off.

Renji glanced over a shoulder at them; they all looked worried in their own ways. He felt the need to say something, and eventually settled on a self-assured little grin. "Don't worry, we'll definitely find him."

Each of the others reacted with small nods or smiles except for Urahara and Yoruichi, who still seemed to be watching Rukia.

She had already reclaimed her gigai, and went through the senkaimon without another word.

Renji exhaled and followed after her.

They arrived in a rather typical-looking residential back alley somewhere in central Tokyo. It was midday, and the air was more humid than in Karakura. There was no one around.

"That was pretty cold," he finally said, keeping any notes of judgment out of his voice.

"What?" Rukia pulled out her soul pager to begin coordinating the search.

"Back there."

Rukia frowned up at him in a way that signaled a lack of comprehension, and quickly returned to checking the status of her force's deployments.

"They're your friends too," Renji continued.

"What are three more people on foot going to do in a city of this size?"

"That's not the point..."

"Maybe you'd like to tell me what your point is then," she snapped. "I'm here to do a job, not to comfort people, and the sooner I get that job done, the better an outcome everybody gets, and the sooner they'll stop worrying."

Renji met her gaze levelly and found her glaring at him as hard as a diamond. He had nothing productive to say in response so he averted his eyes, letting her continue to work. Even so...

They hadn't actually hung out that much since the war had ended; she was almost always able to come up with an excuse whenever he tried to get her to socialize. It was usually some division activity she'd previously scheduled. Even when they had, she seemed really distant, like her mind was always still at work. He realized that he scarcely recognized how she was acting.

If she'd changed so much, what had happened to Ichigo? The only reason Renji could come up with as to why he would've disappeared was that something similar was going on with him. Both of them tended to keep things bottled up, and he'd had to deal with losing his powers too. If she was this way as a result of the war, what would he be like? And how had his friends not seen it? Then again, Rukia was his friend and he hadn't really seen this happening to her...

"If you're just going to stand there being useless then I'm going on without you," she called out to him.

Renji was pulled back into the present moment.

Rukia had moved off down the alley and was looking at him expectantly.

He rubbed the back of his head and followed after her. He found himself hoping they found Ichigo soon, before she piled on one straw too many. In any event, this definitely couldn't be allowed to continue.

Ichigo crouched down and reclined against an air-conditioning unit on the roof of Saint Luke's Tower in Chūō, taking in the view. He was 51 stories up, right in the center of Tokyo.

He probably shouldn't have been there. Technically speaking, roof access was restricted, but it was interesting what one could get away with—if one acted like one belonged there and had no shame about breaking a few rules, anyway. The view was good and unlike say, Tokyo Tower, there were no tourists, so it was also quiet. There was a nice breeze at this altitude, so even though it was still humid, it felt rather pleasant for summer.

He took in the city for a time, and then pulled a copy of The Book of Five Rings by Musashi out of his bag, quickly finding his bookmark. He immediately began to read from where he'd left off.

Ichigo had come to Tokyo both to get away from Karakura for awhile, and to prove he could.

He lived on the outskirts of the biggest city on earth, yet he hadn't been anywhere else but other dimensions in quite awhile. So he'd saved up, walked to Naruki, and hopped on a Japan Railways train that'd eventually connected to the Tokyo subway system, and there he was. He'd made a budget and had a plan: between capsule hotels, hostels, and public bathhouses, he could safely sleep and stay clean, and he had enough to eat modestly.

The story about going to Hokkaido with Mizuiro and Keigo had been plausible enough given the former's tendency to woo women of means, and he'd rather easily acquired a bunch of postcards to send back home that would detail a made-up trip in order to keep Karin and Yuzu from worrying.

It was dishonest, but if he'd said 'Hey, I'm gonna wander around Tokyo for a month on my own, see ya', he knew it wouldn't have gone over well, even if he had been allowed to go off to Soul Society and Hueco Mundo previously. He was 'normal', so that logic no longer held, even if he was 17. He'd estimated the odds of anybody noticing as low—nobody asked questions of him anymore.

So far he'd spent most of his time just finding interesting places to read. It made it easier to remember what he read because he could mentally link each book with a place. He'd gotten the books he was carrying through the Tokyo Metropolitan Library system. The Book of Five Rings was pretty short; to him, the most interesting thing in it was the 'Fire Scroll' and its ideas of 'Mountain and Sea Changing' and 'Knocking the Heart Out'.

After going through it a second time, he put the book aside and looked out over Tokyo for hours as he thought.

Rukia and Renji's initial base of operations was a fairly typical coffee café. The drink was a novelty for both of them, and they idly sipped at different concoctions as they spent the first few hours organizing the beginnings of their search effort. Their conversations were all business.

Renji found he was fine with that given her continuing attitude.

Rukia certainly wasn't bothered by it either.

Perhaps either in fear or awe of her introductory briefing, the Gotei 13's forces had deployed in short order, and their formations were rather quickly organized by their respective leaders. The 13th Division had the biggest area of operations, centered on the middle of Tokyo, with the others were arrayed outward in a sort of radial fashion from there. There had been, on average, three personnel from the Onmitsukidō's executive militia per division, and they were assisting the regular Shinigami with setting up a search pattern, having more experience with that subject.

Fortunately, their new soul pagers worked as multi-function programmable maps, and that combined with Ichigo's limited financial means meant that unless he was deliberately hiding out somewhere, there were a relatively limited number of places he could actually be.

With Ukitake's assurances that Mayuri was continuing to work the problem, they would probably only need five days at most to figure out exactly where Ichigo had gone.

Rukia and Renji stayed in the coffee shop until long after dark, and it was only once the caffeine began to fail them that they departed, looking for a reasonably-priced hotel to overnight at.

Renji had thought about trying to use the downtime to talk with Rukia and get her to open up, but she was purely mission-driven. They'd gotten separate rooms at her insistence, and she immediately retreated into hers—he simply never even got a chance to really talk to her.

Exhaustion wasn't what drove Rukia to solitude, though. Even after she'd showered off and slipped into pajamas, she spent hours staring at the ceiling. When sleep finally claimed her, the thought on her mind was still the same as when she'd flopped back into bed: Ichigo...

Monday, July 29, 2002

All of the Gotei 13's efforts on Saturday and Sunday had come to naught. Shinigami could, in theory, continue to endure for well beyond a day without the performance drop-off that humans would usually experience, but by the second night, establishing work shifts became an organizational concern that needed to be addressed.

They'd gradually been able to reduce the size of their search regions as Mayuri had refined his own investigation; apparently, his tracking would become exponentially better as time went on for various arcane reasons. As Sunday had dragged on, Rukia had been able to watch as their dragnet inexorably closed around the still-invisible Ichigo. She spent hours studying the dark spaces within the probability-colored wireframes on her soul pager's screen. He was somewhere within them...

She and Renji had relocated to a hotel close to a key central subway station, Kasuga Station—she'd delegated him with the job of figuring out the Tokyo subway system, and it'd been his suggestion.

The Monday morning update which woke up Rukia indicated that the search zone had been reduced to the 23 special wards of Tokyo proper. In the absence of directives from her or Renji, the divisions had simply collapsed their own search areas accordingly.

She rolled over in bed to lay on her belly, pleased with their initiative, and briskly issued refinements to their orders through both text and voice, before getting up to quickly shower and dress.

Rukia was finishing up when Renji knocked on her door. After letting him in, she'd just started to tell him about the changes she'd made when a call came in.

Stopping mid-word, she checked her soul pager. The caller was the 10th Division's 7th Seat, Kōkichirō Takezoe. For someone of his rank to be calling her directly at that stage... Her heart skipped a beat before she answered on the second ring. "Yes?" she asked, not trusting herself to say more.

"I definitely have him! He's on foot in Honchō, out of Nakanosakae Station! I spotted him before he went into the subway, but couldn't call until after we got out. There was no signal," the voice on the other end said.

"Stay with him. I'll call your division in," Rukia replied, forcing all the calm she could into her words.

"Yes, Kuchiki-fukutaichō!" he replied, and hung up.

"Renji, it's Ichigo! get your stuff, we're going!" she commanded, before immediately dialing Matsumoto and throwing the few things she had out back into her bag.

By the time Matsumoto picked up and answered "Moshi moshi?" Rukia was heading out the door of her hotel room with her things in tow.

"Takezoe-san found him. Get everybody you have and move in around him, just in case," Rukia ordered.

"Whew! I was starting to think this would never end! Don't worry, Kuchiki, we won't let him out of our sight!" Matsumoto replied, and the call promptly ended.

Renji was right behind Rukia as they made their way to the lobby. They'd paid in advance, and didn't spare the concierge a second thought as they hustled together toward the nearest subway station. It wasn't really practical to use the senkaimon in an active pursuit like this, so they had no choice but to get there through conventional means.

"He got off at Nakanosakae Station," Rukia said as they went, "What's the fastest way to get there from here?"

Renji scratched at a temple with his free hand as he quickly thought it over.

[ A/N: This chapter was last edited on February 23, 2018. ]